


The Soft Point of a Bullet

by LadyMuzzMuzz



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And end up at a gunsmith's house., Angst, Both child twins reunite after the fire, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:13:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25197514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMuzzMuzz/pseuds/LadyMuzzMuzz
Summary: Nell's not just some mere gunsmith... she's an artist.  But her passion doesn't get in the way of doing what's right, especially when two frightened children scavenge through her trash....
Relationships: Dante & Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 174





	The Soft Point of a Bullet

It’s a rainy mid spring evening when she finishes her masterpiece. Or rather, her masterPIECES. She puts down the soldering iron, and lifts up her helmet to fully admire her work under the brilliant workshop light.  _ Yes _ , she thinks as she wipes the sweat off her brow (and not minding the grease that replaces it), she’s created her finest work of art.

Sure, her ex-husband might refer to her as ‘that crazy gunsmith’, but she’d vehemently disagree. A gunsmith is a person who builds and fixes guns. She is an  _ artist. _ Every single piece of weaponry she’s ever brought into the world has a piece of her soul embedded into the metal.

In the eyes of lesser people, what she has in front of her, needing only a final polish, and some fine tuning is a immaculate pair of pistols. Everypart, from the tip of the muzzle, to the reinforced handgrips has been designed to perfection. And perhaps to an expert, they can tell that there are differences, with one capable of faster rate of fire, while the other has much more stability, which equals accuracy.

But to Nell Goldstein, they are not mere guns, not mere weapons, they are the personification of the judgement of Heaven, implements that will separate the chaff from the wheat, those who shall live, and those who shall die. In the hands of someone that sees them the way she does, they could do great things.

Wherein lies the crux of the problem. Pieces like these cannot be left in the hands of a mere mortal, to be tarnished as they are held in worn leather and stained by tobacco smoke.

But neither can they be sold to some connoisseur of the arts, to be left unused, forever pristine under glass and harsh light, to be admired from arms length. Only in the hands of an artist, will they truly shine with the love she has poured into them. Sadly, artist gunslingers are a rare breed these days, and Nell fears that they will never reach their true potential.

A couple of decades ago, when she was younger and more vibrant, she would have treated them with the reverence they deserved, in her work as a devil hunter. But those days are long behind her, so she must find a partner for these beauties.

A rattle outside yanks her out of her haze of admiration. It’s metallic, and comes from the back patio…. From the trash bin.

_ Damn Raccoons _ she thinks, and whips off the gloves. She ought to get one of those new fangled plastic bins that her neighbors have, the kind that the varmints can’t get into. But she always loves the classics. Besides, she has other ways of deterrence. 

She climbs the basement stairs, making sure the safety is still on her Harmony, before popping a couple of shells into the double barreled shotgun. She’s not planning to kill anything, just shoot in their general direction, but those pests have got to learn somehow that Nell Goldstein’s property is off limits by the four footed.

A pause by the back door, a heartbeat’s length, and she pushes the door open. If the creak of the rusty hinges don’t cause them to flee, well, her aim will.

“Alright you bastards, the buffet is closed!” She whips Harmony out, flicks the safety off, and….freezes.

In the darkness, where she expected a bunch of yellow reflecting pinpricks, there are instead two pairs of blue eyes, staring at her with an intensity no animal can convey. Without breaking eye contact, she flicks the patio light on, revealing something she never thought she would see. Two boys pale and thin staring at her like deer. For three seconds, none of them move, before one grabs the other by the arm, and they flee into the darkness of the night.

“Wait…!” she lowers Harmony, and hops down the steps, but they are long gone, and Nell’s not the young gazelle she used to be. “Shit…”

She looks down at the dented trash cans. Her first thought is that the boys were doing the age old prank of kicking over garbage bins, but on closer inspection, the tin buckets are still standing upright, and she’s pretty sure that the dent on the side was there before tonight. The only thing out of place is the contents of her garbage, placed in two neat piles. One, old papers, plastic wrappers, the usual trash. But in the other…. Well, in that, she finds what could be loosely described as...edible. If one was desperate. A mushy banana, a stale end of bread, and a bag of chips that she had accidentally crushed when rearranging her pantry. Nothing good for a child, especially a pair of them.

Well, maybe her husband called her a ‘Waspy old shrew, whose heart has shriveled to gunpowder’, but she wasn’t the one who slept with a dancer at Love Planet. Her heart was cut and scarred from life’s many troubles, but it was still there and beating, and those children needed a place where they didn’t need to scavenge from trash. 

There are two ways to hunt, Nell knows. The most popular way is to go on the offensive, follow the trail, track your quarry.

Nell doesn’t think she has it in her ole’ bones anymore. So instead… she’ll try the old way, a lure.

  
  


The next evening, she sets the bait. Cheese sandwiches, apples, a juicebox and some chocolate chip cookies, all set into a pair of paper bags. And she sits near the patio window, puts on the TV, and waits.

_ 9 PM _

_ 10 PM _

_ 11 PM _

_ 11:30 PM _

The late night comedian is telling yet another banal family friendly joke when she hears the telltale crinkling of paper outside. She peeks outside, through a sliver of the opened curtain, and to her relief, it’s not raccoons, or possums, or a stray coyote. The boys are back, one keeping a lookout while the other rips open his bag like a child at christmas. The glee of a real meal is clear on his scruffed up face, and he yanks the arm of what has to be his brother (and the more she looks at them, the more she realizes that they have to be twins) and… offers him a cookie. That’s a good sign, she thinks. Whatever those boys have been through, they haven’t lost their capacity for goodness, of their humanity.

She takes the opportunity to get them inside, to offer them a place to stay, at least for the night. 

The protesting shriek (she really ought to oil those hinges) causes both boys to go rigid, and before she can say anything, they bolt, and the void of the night covers them like a blanket.

So… she made what was (hopefully) not a fatal mistake in approaching them too early, but Nell is an artist, and artists are if nothing...patient.

So begins her daily routine. Two paper bags, with sandwiches, juice, crackers, veggies and fruits, and every so often, a treat. Then she sets them on the patio, under the awning where they will be protected from the elements. And then she waits. Every night, as the late night news plays its farewell music, one of them watches the door intensely, expecting her to slam it open, while the other gathers their prizes, and they both run into the cover of darkness. For a week, if she hadn’t been keeping an eye out for them, she’d have missed their stopover. But Nell knows this isn’t a hunt anymore, it's a taming. So she resists the urge to open the door, even after replacing the metal hinges, hoping against hope that soon they will come to her. 

But after a week of them creeping around, a breakthrough happens. It’s a late spring night, the crickets chirp and the first of the fireflies of the season flicker among the leaves of grass. The boys sit on the front step, and begin to eat, like a midnight picnic. She is certain they know she watches, but aside from one of them maintaining a constant alertness, they seem to pay her no mind. 

She finds out some things about them. The stern one, the one most on guard is named Vergil, and he looks constantly tired. When was the last time the poor boy got a good night’s sleep? The younger one, (but only by a few minutes, he reminds his brother constantly) is named Dante, and he seems a bit more cheerful, a little less on edge. But to an artist like Nell, she can see it's a mask, albeit an elaborate one, something to hide the pain and fear he feels and has experienced. 

She hears snippets of their conversations, she doesn’t want to eavesdrop, but when Dante says that he would really like strawberries one night, the next morning she makes a beeline to the market to pick a pint up. The look on his face is worth every penny that night as he gorges himself on the crimson jewels.

“Come on Vergil, try some!” he says that night, as he’s halfway through the basket. The older boy waves his red stained hands away, but that doesn’t deter the younger, “I know you love strawberries! You were so happy when mom made those strawberry sundaes the night …..” he stops, and for a moment, the mask cracks, “oh.” Something clicks for him “that’s why you don’t like them anymore, they remind you of the attack.”

“Eat them, Dante…” the stern child, far too serious for his age orders, although there’s softness in his voice. They continue to eat in silence, a sombre pallor cast over the once joyous bounty.

That morning, when she awakens, she goes outside to find the remnants of their meal gone, placed in the trash can, but the plastic basket that held the strawberries contains the most peculiar thing, a brown paper bag, folded into the shape of a crane. It takes a place of honour on her workbench.

Summer hits, and now Nell leaves out more than food. The boys, with their pale skin, need sunscreen, and she leaves out multiple bottles, as well as hair brushes and toothbrushes. Vergil especially likes the comb, if the quickness at how he brushes his hair back is any indication. The boys need new clothes, so a quick dig into the closet of her son’s closet, and she finds a couple sets of his old clothes, that he never did donate like she had asked years before. 

And as she washes them (they’re probably a couple sizes too big), she wonders if she’s become so attached to these boys to fill the hole in her heart when her boy, Rock, took off on his own. Is she becoming one of those empty nesters women her age are always worried of becoming?

Is that why she hasn’t gone to the authorities to inquire where these children are from? Whatever the boys have been through, she’s not sure the police could help them.

That night, the boys examine the clothes (and she’s right, they’re too big, although with a growth spurt, they should fit fine in a year or two.) Dante trades his new blue button up top for his brother’s red t-shirt, and they leave for parts unknown, their new backpacks stuffed with things that every child needs. And that morning, she finds an origami elephant on her front door.

She finds a pair of sleeping bags, and leaves them for the boys, in the hopes that perhaps they’ll get better sleep wherever they disappear off to. She’s pretty certain that the circles under Vergil’s eyes indicate that their current bedding is less than suitable.

It’s to her glee one night, during a rainstorm, the boys decide that sleeping on her sheltered patio is preferable to trudging through the rain. Nell makes herself a cup of strong coffee and sits by the window to listen.

“But it’s MY day to choose where we go, and I wanna go to the park!” Dante whines.

“The rain is supposed to continue all of tomorrow, the library will be fine for us, we can go to the park when it clears up.” Vergil remains sitting, knees bunched up at his chest, while Dante lays down on his sleeping bag in a huff.

“I know what you’re gonna do, you’re gonna read another boring book about folding papers again!” 

“It’s called Origami. And I am learning them to thank her.” A blush of warmth fills Nell’s soul.

“So you DO trust her!” Dante exclaims as he sits up, “you wouldn’t make things like that for anybody you didn’t like.”

“Quiet, Dante.” he says, like a boy trying to keep a friend from telling his crush.

“Then why can’t we stay here? I think she’s nice, and you think she’s alright, we’d be okay here!”

“You know what happened last time we let ourselves accept safety,” Vergil warns, and as she peeks, she sees the younger twin tense up. “That entire family was killed by demons, and we couldn’t protect them. Dante-”   
“I know…”

“That’s why-”

“I KNOW!” the boy nearly yells.

“We can only protect ourselves and each other. Get some sleep, Dante.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll wake you up to keep guard when I get tired, now rest”

Dante’s head flops back down on the makeshift pillow. There is a period of silence, and she thinks that Dante has fallen asleep, only to hear his small voice, barely audible over the driving rain. 

“I’m just tired of running, tired of being afraid, aren’t you too, Vergil?”

An even quieter voice responds “Yes….”

And so the stern little boy, with a burden no child should ever have, keeps guard over his little brother, and Nell wonders if he ever does fall asleep. The boys have vanished that early morning, the only sign they’ve been there is the small origami figure of an owl on her doorstep.

Fall arrives, and along with the lunch bags, she places warmer clothes, new shoes, (hopefully they fit, she doesn’t want to cause blisters) and replacements for toothbrushes and such. The boys stay overnight much more often, but still, they don’t knock on her door.

Halloween comes, and she leaves them both baggies full of candy, mostly chocolates for Vergil, strawberry gummies for Dante. She doesn’t even mind when they ignore the healthy lunch bags she’s prepared for them in favour of the delicious sweets. Despite everything they’ve been through, they both deserve to feel like children, as she watches them trade candies with each other. But she’s getting worried, because the last of the summer’s heat has dissipated, and the first fingers of night frost are starting to cover the blades of grass. She’d thought by now that she’d have gained their trust, but she realizes it’s never been about her, the twins don’t trust themselves to let down their guard. All Nell can do is hope and pray, as she opens her door to see a perfectly folded paper pumpkin sitting there, lightly coated in frost.

Miserable November passes, with the boys now staying overnight all the time, where she has found a little weatherproof heater to keep them warm. And then December hits, with a cold front that smashes into the middle of the month. Snow now piles up in drifts up to her knees, and she has half a mind to just pick up the boys and drag them in the next time they sleep over, no matter what harm it would do to their relationship.

Except, four nights before Christmas, they don’t show up. It’s not like they decided to sleep elsewhere after they picked up their baggies, because the lunch bags are still there, frozen solid in the snow. And no tracks.

_ Ah well,  _ she thinks as she continues fine tuning the pair of pistols (she still hasn’t found a suitable owner for them),  _ the weather was nasty last night, can’t blame ‘em for not wanting to make the trek _ .

But one night turns to two, and two nights turns into four. Nell’s getting worried. It’s not like the boys to be like this. She can only hope that they’ve found somewhere safe to wait out the storm, but in the back of her mind, an ugly worm wriggles around, whispering of darker fates that the twins must have experienced. Kidnapped by people for nefarious purposes, finally found by demons. Succumbed to cold….

And as she sits on her couch that Christmas night, her plate of turkey and mashed potatoes barely eaten, she wonders if by being too patient, she’s doomed both boys to a horrible fate. She glances at the two stockings she’s left hanging on the patio railing for them, and suddenly the food she managed to eat threatens to bubble up in a wave of guilt induced nausea.

The day after Christmas, she breaks her self imposed rule and begins looking around. The local park is deserted, with most people preferring to do the post christmas shopping sales, or, more likely, sleep off their food hangovers. And in the library, when she asks, she gets a hint. Yes, the librarian says, she knows what boys she’s talking about, but she hasn’t seen them in almost a week.

And so Nell stews, and even a phone call from her son wishing her a Belated Merry Christmas doesn’t do much to cheer her up. Even working on her pride and joy project, now nearly perfected, doesn’t hold her interest.

And then, two days before New Year’s, during the Mother of all Snowstorms, she hears a knock. It’s quiet, barely audible over the screaming wind and had she been sleeping (she hasn’t slept well in the past week, preferring to stay up and stare at the pair of stockings she’s brought inside), she would have never heard. The fact that it’s just before the late night news ends causes a funny feeling in her chest. Cautiously, she approaches, not wanting to hope, but doing it anyways, and opens the door. As if it senses her trepidation, it is stubborn, and refuses to budge, (although honestly, it's probably warped by the cold)

And when she finally wrangles the door into compliance, there in front of her stands Vergil, trying his best to look intimidating and brave, but his tired eyes betray his fear.  _ Fear of her?  _ She at first thinks incredulously, until she realizes what he has on his back. It’s Dante, his arms loosely draped around his shoulders, his legs carried at Vergil’s hips, as if he’s playing piggyback. But it's his face, eyes closed, his mouth frowning in distress, sweat on his brow that concerns her.

“I’ve tried taking care of him these past few days on my own,” Vergil says. Dante moans something intelligible, and Vergil flinches at it. “But I can’t protect him…. And you’re the only one I can trust.”

Warmth blossoms in her chest as she wordlessly ushers the boy and his feverish load inside. Despite Vergil still standing on his own two feet, it's apparent by the dark circles (have they always been this dark, she’s never gotten a chance to look at them this closely) the boy needs almost as much attention and care as his brother. 

“May I?” she asks as she walks behind him, ready to take the unconscious boy off his shoulders. Vergil stiffens, and for a moment, she’s worried that he’ll bolt again, and run back outside, into the ever taller drifts of snow. But then, she sees him nod, and gently lifts the child, marveling at how light he feels. Even through the layers of heavy clothing he’s wearing, she can feel the tell tale heat of a fever emanating from his tiny body. She quickly makes her way to Rock’s old room and places the child on the bed. She quickly takes off his outer clothes, leaving him in his red t-shirt (it’s worn and has holes, she mentally makes a note to get him another one. In red preferably) and pants, and does a cursory first aid check. His breathing is rapid, but steady, as is his pulse. Vergil pulls himself up onto the opposite side of the bed, and attempts to watch on unworried (which Nell can obviously tell he’s failing at), as she makes her assessment. If Dante’s temperature is within a safe range, she can avoid having to take him to a hospital, something she worries that his brother might not allow.

“Stay with him, I’m gonna get some wet cloths and a thermometer,” she asks as she heads to the bathroom. It’s been forever since she had to treat a fever for her son, but she’s slowly remembering how worried she was the first time. She forces her trembling hands to stop shaking as she opens the medicine cabinet to fetch the thermometer, (oh boy, she hopes this children’s acetaminophen isn’t expired) and some washcloths. She soaks the cloths in cool water, and catches her face in the mirror. She looks much like Vergil, pale, tired, and afraid. Well, ole’ Nell can’t have that. She needs to put on that mask Dante wears, to keep both boys calm. Taking a deep breath, she forces a smile to her face and hurries back.

Vergil is still awake and alert, much to her surprise. The poor boy looks like he’s about to collapse, but he holds his brother’s hand. 

Dante murmurs broken sentences. “Mom, don’t go…..don’t leave us…” It breaks her heart to see him reliving what must be his last moments with his mother, “Vergil? Where are you…? The fire’s so hot…. can’t find you…” She pretends not to notice the older boy’s knuckles turning white as she sets down the cloths on the nightstand

“I’m here Dante, I’m here, and I’m not leaving you” Vergil assures him as he bites his chapped lower lip. He hasn’t taken off his coat or even his scarf, even though he must be getting hot himself. But his reasurrences seem to do the trick, as Dante appears to calm down, allowing her to take his temperature via ear. It chirps cheerfully, sounding out of place in this most tense of situations, and she waits until its final verdict comes in…

  1. _3 °C_



She lets out a sigh of relief. It’s a fever all right, but not a dangerous one. Being trapped outdoors might have worsened a minor illness to something more severe, and hopefully, with enough rest and fluids, his fever will break and he’ll be able to fight off what is probably just a run of the mill infection. 

“He’ll be fine,” she reassures his brother. “He just needs some time to sleep, his temperature is probably going to go down. And you,” she points to the boy, startling him. “You need sleep as well. How long have you been awake?”

Vergil puffs up his chest, attempting to look insulted at the question. “He needs me to stay awake, to guard him...If I don’t protect him…”

Nell will have none of this. “You can’t keep him safe if you get sick too,” she chides, “I can’t imagine what you two have been through, but even you deserve some time to feel safe. Besides,” she chuckles and reveals Wonder, her revolver in her holster, “This ain’t my first rodeo with those things that hunt ya. Pests like them are just the same as raccoons, they just need a bit more firepower to be put down. You don’t need to worry, Ole’ Nell can take care of yah.” Seeing the boy is only partially convinced, she chuckles “Well, suit yourself, but you probably are hungry, I’ll get you something to eat.” And with that, she makes her way to the kitchen. 

She takes her time as she makes a couple of leftover turkey sandwiches, and some carrot sticks, (and wonders if she has enough turkey left to make some hearty soup for Dante) and smiles. It’s taken a lot of patience and hard work, but that’s all in a day's work for an artist like Nell. Now, the next step is to convince the children that they can stay, and feel secure. If it means teaching them the ins and outs of demon hunting at such a young age, so be it. Anything to keep them safe. 

She takes the plate, along with a couple glasses of apple juice back to the bedroom, and stops…

Dante lays there, not as flushed as he once was, his pained face now looking peaceful, his mouth open as a trail of drool dribbles out. And beside him, his arm resting on his chest, is Vergil, curled up against his brother, even in sleep attempting to protect him. Nell chuckles, sets the food down on the nightstand, and quietly leaves the room, to let the two boys sleep. Perhaps she’ll hang the stockings on the foot of the bed….

Thus begins a week and a half of steady recuperation for Dante under Nell’s (and Vergil’s) careful watch. Though naturally pale, she sees the colour return to his face as he eats heartily, and pushes away his brother’s attempts to feed him. His eyes widen with delight as he finds his belated christmas stocking, and he constantly pesters his brother to play go fish, or crazy eights with his pack of cards. 

Vergil gains some colour and fullness to his cheeks, and the circles under his eyes gradually fade away. He attempts to not look too delighted at the books he finds in his stockings….and the coloured square sheets of folding paper. She never catches him folding the papers, but one morning she finds an origami snowflake hanging off her bedroom door knob. 

Even more encouraging, is that Vergil is spending time apart from Dante, when the younger boy sleeps. Occasionally he comes on behalf of his brother to ask for a drink, or some snacks (but Nell’s certain a lot of the time it's for him.)

One day, to her surprise, she finds him washing dishes, reaching up on his tip-toes to place the glasses in the cupboards. “Mother said we should be polite guests,” he tells her matter of factly.

“You’re not guests, kiddo,” she takes the glass and places it on the shelf. Their mother was one heck of a woman to have taught these boys to be so polite. “A guest only stays for a limited amount of time. You boys can stay for as long as you want.”

Conflict flashes across his face as he dries the last of the plates. “Once Dante is feeling better, we’ll be going. We can’t stay.” He frowns and looks outside. A warm spell has hit, and much of the Christmas and New Years snow has melted away. No doubt the foolish boy wishes to brave the unpredictable weather to keep on the move, thinking that staying put will just attract trouble, despite all her arguments to the contrary. 

Vergil doesn’t catch it, but Nell notices a bit of fluffy white hair peeking around the corner of the kitchen entrance before disappearing.

Dante’s condition the next day deteriorates unexpectedly. He becomes lethargic, and doesn’t seem to have the energy to even annoy his brother to play yet another game of cards. He’s not eating as much, and he’s become more pale. Poor Vergil is pacing, trying to figure out what’s wrong with him.

Nell, on the other hand, as a mother, knows all the tricks of the trade. The way his eyes light up when she offers him a slice of pizza, something an ill child would be rather uninterested in, the fact that he’s much more alert when he doesn’t think she and Vergil are watching. Also, how he plays up the symptoms when she goes to check on him, moaning and whining like her ex-husband used to do.. His temperature is also back to normal, so she knows he’s faking. But she decides to just let him play his game, the longer he acts sick, the longer both of them remain. And the more time she can convince them to stay….or rather, she suspects, convincing Vergil to stay.

She’s about to bring them some freshly laundered clothes, when she hears Vergil’s voice behind the closed bedroom door.

“You’re not fooling me anymore, Dante”

“Huh?”

“Stop playing dumb, you’ve been pretending being sick the past few days. I remember you pulled the same trick when you didn’t want to go to school that time we had that test”

“I hate taking tests...and I WAS sick!”

“Mother didn’t buy it, and neither did I. And now you’re doing the same thing again! Why?”

“Seriously? You’re asking me that?”

“I wouldn’t ask that question because I found it fun, little brother”

A rustle of blankets as she presumes Dante sits up, his ruse discovered.

“I’m tired of running. I’m tired of being scared. I’m tired of being hungry and cold and wet.”

“But you know what happened the last time-”

“I KNOW!” Dante is on the verge of tears, “But SHE’S different. She’s hunted them before, she knows what they can do. We’re so much safer with her than even on our own. She WANTS to help us, she doesn’t want us to run and be scared! Why can’t you see that!?”

To which… Vergil has no answer. 

She’s made the last fine tuning of the pistols. Any more, and she’ll diminish perfection. It’s been seven months, and while many have clamoured for these weapons, some sight unseen, due to Nell Goldstein’s reputation, she’s declined all offers. None have been worthy of them…

_ None...save for two. _

The creak of the wooden basement steps signals the approach of one. Vergil warily creeps down to see what she’s up to. She smiles and waves him over to approach.

“Finally caught on to your brother’s shenanigans, did ya?” she quips as she places her tools away for the night.

“He’s always been that way, it’s….aggravating.” Vergil frowns, and takes a seat near the workbench.   
“He’s right you know,” she responds, and she wipes her hands on a cloth, attempting to get all the grease off. “You’re far too young to be out on the street like that. It’s not just demons you gotta be wary of. Sometimes humans can be just as bad, if not worse.”

The boy furrows his brow, and contemplates her words. She shuts the tool drawer a bit too roughly, causing the table to shake and the origami crane topples over, before Nell, still quick despite her age, grabs it before it hits the floor, and sets it beside the other figurines

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Vergil’s eyes widen, both at her reaction time, and the fact the entire collection of folded paper models sit there, just out of reach of sparks.

“You….you kept them?” he asks, honestly surprised.

It’s her time to be shocked “They’re pieces of art! Why would I throw them out?” She leans against the worn wood. “You and I are alike, ya know? We’re both artists at heart. You express yours with paper. Me?” she pulls out the black enameled gun. “These babies are my art.” She shows him the empty chamber, before handing it to him. “And I can think of no other person who would appreciate it more. After all, a masterpiece like this can only be truly respected by fellow artists.”

He tentatively places his hand around the grip, (it’s a bit too big for him, but he’ll grow into it), and analyzes the weapon, and suddenly Nell feels like she’s back in high school, where Mr. Baxter judged her end of year shop project. 

“Mother…” he murmurs, and she’s not sure if it's directed at her, “she had a gun like this…. She used it to save us…”

“And I think,” she pauses, and hopes what she says comes across as genuine, “your mom would want you both to be safe, and unafraid. And I might not come close to the woman she was, but by God, I won’t let anything make you feel like you have to run and hide.” She stands straight, and stretches. “So, what’s it gonna be?”

Vergil examines the gun, and glances to the row of paper figures. Slowly, but with care, he places the pistol next to its sibling. 

“I suppose this place wouldn’t be half bad to call home…”

Coming from someone so stoic and guarded as Vergil, this is the equivalent to enthusiastic agreement, and Nell Goldstein, artiste extraordinaire, is ecstatic. All the months of hard work, patience, worry, and fear, she’s finally succeeded at her task.

“Now,” she says as she escorts the young boy up the stairs, “lets go and tell your brother that he can call off playing sickie,” she pauses and cocks her head. “Although, I think he already knows….”

And from behind the basement door, she can hear a barely suppressed giggle.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I can't take full credit for this, (I can barely take partial credit). [This](https://twitter.com/Sabarcher630/status/1257751693099331585) AU was created by the lovely Saberarcher342 on Twitter, (Who is a fountain of wonderful DMC AU's)


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